Guild Wars 2

Afther the thread looking at GW2 results over a longer period ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/first that is now closed so save to link), I did want to have a look at the results for Q4 2016 and Q1 of 2017.

In that thread some people though it was too much of an ‘I told you so’ statement, well sadly this time I have to say ‘I was wrong’.

The results of Q4 did just get released, you can find them here: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/prfile.aspx?ID=9DE70054-C1F4-43C2-842B-8A228757B8D6
I expected Q4 to go up with it being Q4, shorter days, more vacation, Halloween, Wintersday and a lot of the season 3 release. Sadly I was wrong, Q4 2016 had even lower results the the two before.

At least the ‘It’s because the lack of content’ argument as reason for lower results can now be completely shredded.

It’s really sad because the core of the game is really good.

Other than the ‘problem’ that the game has, there is an addition problem now, its how do you get the people back.

For example, the upcoming patch is really something we should have had much sooner, simply because of the location of the map, that is something that interests people. But those that left will not be likely to come back to see it at this point.

I always did think that HoT and the first half year after it was basically when Anet had to solve the problem because even if they fixed it now, people are just not here / coming back to see it. The only way I could see many people coming back if is the next expansion would be marketed as GW3 but that would be really bad if the next expansion is nothing like a GW3.

Edit: Clarification about the ‘lack of content, shredder’ comment in my first post\/.

Well the lack of content was still a factor. Episode 3 wasn’t that time consuming and Wintersday could be done in a couple hours. There’s also the holidays when people are with families instead of playing. Students also had finals to study for. I also don’t recall any noteworthy sales or promotions in the gemstone to warrant people to rush to buy things.

I guess I should do something different at reset based on this intel…THANKS!!

Expansions are really the only thing that’ll bring people in. People simply don’t care about some patch an MMO gets, whereas expansions are much more visible.

An expansion is typically only going to keep people active for 1-3 months. Season 3 was simply too late to matter.

And yet it’s #1 on the most respected gaming site of all…

Nope lack of content arguments can’t be shredded. People stopped playing because of lack of content and not all of them came back. So unless you have some proof that everyone comes back, I’m not sure what to tell you.

Other issues are even more loudly complained about including the game becoming more “hard core” and less “casual”.

All this proves is that Anet had a really good run and now they’re falling into the pattern most MMOs fall into.

Nothing else can be gleaned from this. Not one thing.

Funny, while you take away from the report that it wasn’t lack of content….When i talk to whats left of the people in my guild who still care but don’t play it’s clear the two most common issues are Content (either lack of / or replaying old equally not updated festivals with issues since their inception) and Balance.

Also, what that chart actually shows me is that Anet doesn’t understand how to retain its playerbase as well as it thinks when it comes to selling them products.

I’ve always felt there just isn’t enough worth doing in between content updates.

Yes, the new themepark content has been pretty sparse. Too many months go by before we get some morsel of content that only takes hours to do. Now I very much welcome it when it comes, but let’s face it; most of the time it’s just a long stretch of the same old stuff.

Of course no dev that I’ve seen can truly keep up with players. We always burn through content way faster than it can be made. So that brings me to my first sentence. While waiting for that new bit of story, what kind of things can we do in the mean time?

Scripted dungeons / raids? Learn the meta and it becomes routine.

Dynamic Events / World Bosses? Learn the meta and it becomes routine.

Exploring / World Completion? More fun here than most games, but ..been there, done that.

Guild Missions? Nice team-coordinated activities, but still just more scripted content that’s always the same.

SPVP? Ok if you’re into little matches. Though it was never enough to captivate me much.

WvW? Finally a significant player-driven feature with variety and freedom ..right? Well, it’s just another match system, only a bit bigger and longer. Just keep swapping castles every 10 minutes for a week with nothing really to show for it other than resetting and doing it some more. It’s a shallow representation of what it could have been.

I’ve been mostly a PVE & WvW player but have always struggled to feel much attachment to anything in the game. We have a lot of QoL features which I greatly appreciate. But we sorely lack player-driven gameplay features. We’re almost entirely dependent on Anet to give us some new scripted thing to complete.

So I just don’t log on as much anymore. I may hop on for the daily chest, but I don’t actively spend time playing unless there’s a particular reason to. I made a special point of being on tonight for the new LW update (that got delayed and isn’t happening tonight after all). I intend to put in however much time I need to for that. But when it’s done, I imagine things will be back to usual for quite a while.

No legit personal housing. Guild “property ownership” via WvW is laughably pointless. There’s no kind of open world political system to participate in. There are all kinds of things that could make more of a “living world” (driven to some degree by living people, not just scripted things).

But as it is, when there’s no new story to catch up on, there just isn’t much to care about. I don’t think about it when I’m at work or when I come home. There just isn’t anything that “matters” in that static world. Nothing that won’t be exactly the same the next day or next month. Nothing my guild or I can participate in that would be of any kind of importance.

It’s a great high quality game, a franchise I’ve liked since GW1 beta. But that’s the situation I’m in (and I suspect not just me). I’d like to feel more involved and attached, but it just lacks so many things that could get me there.

It lacks reasons for me to spend time (and possibly more money) in there outside of the very occasional little story update. It’s likely I’ll purchase the next expansion. I even bought the books prior to GW2 launch. So I’m a bit of a story buff and that reliably draws me in.

Ultimately if that’s all they have for me, it’s all I’ll come for. But that alone does not make a world I feel I have a place in, a place I want to regularly spend my free time.

If there’s one thing Anet could have done better it would have been to not chase the spvp e-sports with gaudy cash prizes and instead used that money to hire another dev or two. An extra body working full time on popular content like fractals or wvw would go a long way.

Well this is a little early.

Doesn’t surprise me. I imagine account key sales aren’t significant at all at the moment even with a 1/2 price sale before episode 3 launched, which was mid quarter. Down only 3% from the previous quarter isn’t all that bad. Of course comparing it YoY with the quarter that HoT launched makes it look a lot worse.

Of course the real loser is WildStar as it doesn’t even get called out anymore and gets lumped into “other”.

One way to spin it, ANet significantly slowed the hemorrhaging with three relatively flat quarters.

As for their sPvP e-Sports plus P4F strategy, believe it or not it’s “cheap” advertising. I don’t have a problem with it.

I don’t really know how you can claim “lack of content” is an argument that can be shredded when it is absolutely a lack of content that creates a drought that has players leave, and that the Season 3 of LS is too little too late and not enough to bring them back.

Every episode of the Living Story Season 3 can be played in a day. It’s not “new content” insofar as “new content that keeps my attention for more than a day.” I go in on my level 80, I complete it in a few hours maximum, and then all of a sudden I’m done. Unless I feel an urge to do the new map farm, whatever it happens to be that update, in order to get some piddly ascended backpiece or a horrifically expensive skin, I have no actual need to stay playing.

I can jump in, do the new content in a few hours, and then leave just as easily because I’ve experienced all of the “new” content that was offered.

So… so yeah, lack of content is still absolutely an issue. You aren’t shredding it anywhere, you’re actually just proving that Living Story is not enough to keep players returning and actively playing for a long period of time. I’ve played GW2 more in the last two months than I have in the last half a year because a new friend started to play the game, not because Living Story suddenly started updating. If the new friend hadn’t gotten the game, I’d still be as absent from GW2 as ever.

There is absolutely a lack of viable content long-standing enough to bring back players that left during the drought of content, and there is absolutely a lack of viable content that lasts for more than a day at best for anybody who doesn’t feel an urge to grind for menial small tidbits like a backpiece or a somewhat exclusive skin.

I could be wrong but… Are not these numbers all regions combined? Korea has the most and to my understanding GW2 is not as popular over there for reasons I do not know.

I just figure that the other games put more energy in the Korean market than what GW2 does. But sure, everyone does not think like me.

Many other more non-korean MMO-games does not give half as much content for free as what Anet gives GW2. Sure maby their expansions are bigger and cheaper but you will have to wait one or two years before you can play the next story. Between that they may put in one or two dungeons with a few features and bug-fixes. But it is not better than the ammount of GW2 updates.

( I may be biased as I havent had the time to play other MMO’s for over a year, so it may have changed since )

Devata.6589:

At least the ‘It’s because the lack of content’ argument as reason for lower results can now be completely shredded.

No the argument still stands and you explained why:

But those that left will not be likely to come back to see it at this point.

and also:

I always did think that HoT and the first half year after it was basically when Anet had to solve the problem because even if they fixed it now, people are just not here / coming back to see it.

Having such a lack of content after the release of HoT, and an equal content drought before HoT, is where the “lack of content” argument is coming from. The lack of content hurts the game long term.

It’s the same reason why the results of HoT weren’t as good as some expected. Huge content drought before HoT was released and a rather lacking LS2 led to many players leaving and not enough coming back to check out HoT.

The “lack of content” argument will remain forever as a reminder to the higher ups to never do it again for any reason.

It looks like my ‘lack of content’ and that that argument can be shredded needs some clarification.

That was a reference to a discussion in the other thread I linked, so understandable that people misinterpreted it, my bad.

Obviously I think more content is good, no content means no players, and it is as simple as that. I have also always been very in favor an expansion-based model like GW1 had, so many expansion and every expansions is content.

I also think you need to have content to keep people busy in-between expansion, like quests-chains and dungeons, PvP-like content (Like a dungeon where two teams compete with each other) and so on. Basically, they need goals to work towards (And that should just just be some boring currency grind).

No, when I talk about the ‘lack of content argument’, it’s more the very popular notion (on these forums) that less activity, less players, lower results is the reason of no Living story releases. Basically, they see the lack of those releases as the big underlying problem, I don’t. Based on that idea multiple people expected the results to go up already in Q3 of 2016, but they did not.

And then, why do I now say that argument can be shredded based on the results of Q4. They don’t, not on this alone. In the other thread I put all results together and then you can see there seem to be no real correlation between more of these patches and better results. For example, the period of Season 2 had lower results then the half year after it, while in that half year we had almost no releases (but HoT was announced). And now the last 3 quarters we have had released but the results did keep going down.

I acknowledge that for many of the active players these patches are important, but for the bigger player base (well, used, to be player base) that just does not seem to be the case, simply the announcement of HoT (as an example) seems to be more reason for them to be active then the Living Story releases.

In that light, the ‘lack of content’ as argument for the problems can be put in the shredder. Q4 had 2 festivals and LS releases during the full quarter and still the results did go down and that is for a Q4 that is usually higher than average!

Ayrilana.1396:

Well the lack of content was still a factor. Episode 3 wasn’t that time consuming and Wintersday could be done in a couple hours. There’s also the holidays when people are with families instead of playing. Students also had finals to study for. I also don’t recall any noteworthy sales or promotions in the gemstone to warrant people to rush to buy things.

Q4 is usually a higher quarter (for this type of results) because of the holidays, not a lower one.

Fenom.9457:

And yet it’s #1 on the most respected gaming site of all…

You can try to keep your hopes up based on that sort of things, but it does not change the results. Things have to change (and I don’t know how because I think it’s likely already too late).

This is just said: Every other franchise remained stable or even made more money. But GW2 is falling and falling… But let’s face it: If you release an overpriced expansion with so little content and horrible balancing, releasing nothing for nearly a year (except raid) people leave. And it seems they struggle to retain players. A friend of mine who started the GW franchise with the Beta of GW1 in 2004 or 2005 even quit playing.

I stopped playing guild wars 2 last December. It’s when I realized I was depending on it too much for enjoyment, yet I wasn’t enjoying playing it.

I went back to Path of Exile, as the content added to that game is designed to shake things up… change how people play the game. Grinding Gear Games aren’t designing new content within a strict comfort zone. Their ideas are bold as **** and I found it exciting.

P.S. I miss guild wars. Is why I still lurk when I really should be moving on. I don’t know why I find it so hard to walk away from GW completely.

Devata.6589:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well the lack of content was still a factor. Episode 3 wasn’t that time consuming and Wintersday could be done in a couple hours. There’s also the holidays when people are with families instead of playing. Students also had finals to study for. I also don’t recall any noteworthy sales or promotions in the gemstone to warrant people to rush to buy things.

Q4 is usually a higher quarter (for this type of results) because of the holidays, not a lower one.

Previous years have had sales/promotions unlike this past one.

ProtoGunner.4953:

This is just said: Every other franchise remained stable or even made more money. But GW2 is falling and falling… But let’s face it: If you release an overpriced expansion with so little content and horrible balancing, releasing nothing for nearly a year (except raid) people leave. And it seems they struggle to retain players. A friend of mine who started the GW franchise with the Beta of GW1 in 2004 or 2005 even quit playing.

I must say that I got back to gw2 two weeks ago. I wanted to do HoT expansion (story) this time on my Guardian. I finished it in 1 day.

Then I wanted to finish my Ascended gear (I only had trinkets and Ascended coat). I’ve finished it in 2 days playing ranked PvP with less then 50% win ratio.

In 3 days I’ve finished All the expansion story and got best gear in the game.

…seriously? I’ve expected far more from expansion, but all the content out there which isn’t story is not needed for me, if I don’t even need gold to get the best gear in the game, loot drops are horrible, everything is only about gold farm, or getting ACCOUNT based drops!

…also, AH system is the worst thing to happen to this game, everything went to hell because of it (and it’s just one of the bigger issues game has)

…so yeah, there really is less and less content each time, or it’s just tedious time-gated content with unique currencies for each map and account based loot (cuz AH system broke the game) which is totally bad and unrewarding.

I still play because I want finish level 100 fractals, raids and get my Bolt. But that’s about it

Mikali.9651:

ProtoGunner.4953:

This is just said: Every other franchise remained stable or even made more money. But GW2 is falling and falling… But let’s face it: If you release an overpriced expansion with so little content and horrible balancing, releasing nothing for nearly a year (except raid) people leave. And it seems they struggle to retain players. A friend of mine who started the GW franchise with the Beta of GW1 in 2004 or 2005 even quit playing.

I must say that I got back to gw2 two weeks ago. I wanted to do HoT expansion (story) this time on my Guardian. I finished it in 1 day.

Then I wanted to finish my Ascended gear (I only had trinkets and Ascended coat). I’ve finished it in 2 days playing ranked PvP with less then 50% win ratio.

In 3 days I’ve finished All the expansion story and got best gear in the game.

…seriously? I’ve expected far more from expansion, but all the content out there which isn’t story is not needed for me, if I don’t even need gold to get the best gear in the game, loot drops are horrible, everything is only about gold farm, or getting ACCOUNT based drops!

…also, AH system is the worst thing to happen to this game, everything went to hell because of it (and it’s just one of the bigger issues game has)

…so yeah, there really is less and less content each time, or it’s just tedious time-gated content with unique currencies for each map and account based loot (cuz AH system broke the game) which is totally bad and unrewarding.

I still play because I want finish level 100 fractals, raids and get my Bolt. But that’s about it

So all in all you still have content from the expansion to do…

Famine.3164:

Mikali.9651:

ProtoGunner.4953:

This is just said: Every other franchise remained stable or even made more money. But GW2 is falling and falling… But let’s face it: If you release an overpriced expansion with so little content and horrible balancing, releasing nothing for nearly a year (except raid) people leave. And it seems they struggle to retain players. A friend of mine who started the GW franchise with the Beta of GW1 in 2004 or 2005 even quit playing.

I must say that I got back to gw2 two weeks ago. I wanted to do HoT expansion (story) this time on my Guardian. I finished it in 1 day.

Then I wanted to finish my Ascended gear (I only had trinkets and Ascended coat). I’ve finished it in 2 days playing ranked PvP with less then 50% win ratio.

In 3 days I’ve finished All the expansion story and got best gear in the game.

…seriously? I’ve expected far more from expansion, but all the content out there which isn’t story is not needed for me, if I don’t even need gold to get the best gear in the game, loot drops are horrible, everything is only about gold farm, or getting ACCOUNT based drops!

…also, AH system is the worst thing to happen to this game, everything went to hell because of it (and it’s just one of the bigger issues game has)

…so yeah, there really is less and less content each time, or it’s just tedious time-gated content with unique currencies for each map and account based loot (cuz AH system broke the game) which is totally bad and unrewarding.

I still play because I want finish level 100 fractals, raids and get my Bolt. But that’s about it

So all in all you still have content from the expansion to do…

Raid is just matter of time when I do it, it’s just me personally not wanting to do it yet. Fractals I can’t call Expansion content, at all. Bolt is not expansion content. So yeah, don’t try to defend things which aren’t there to be defended

Mikali.9651:

I’ve finished it in 2 days playing ranked PvP with less then 50% win ratio.

The reward system of PVP Season 5 was terrible and I really hope it will change in Season 6. Allowing everyone to get full Ascended in a couple of days, without actually playing the game, and without giving any resources (like gold/materials) wasn’t a very good decision.

And btw each HoT zone has unique skin rewards, weapons and/or armor, each zone has unique meta events and a different story. There are lots of collection achievements that include many unique skins. Sure you finished the story and got max gear in a couple of days, that’s how the game is designed.

You finish the story quickly, you get to max level quickly, you get near-max gear (exotic) quickly (see above about the ascended armor from PVP) or at a rather slow pace (if you exclude PVP) then you play the game for the unique skins offered by the various activities it offers. That’s Guild Wars 2 and that’s how the players who play the game like it. If you want a game with constant gear progression there are many out there.

Devata.6589:

Ayrilana.1396:

Well the lack of content was still a factor. Episode 3 wasn’t that time consuming and Wintersday could be done in a couple hours. There’s also the holidays when people are with families instead of playing. Students also had finals to study for. I also don’t recall any noteworthy sales or promotions in the gemstone to warrant people to rush to buy things.

Q4 is usually a higher quarter (for this type of results) because of the holidays, not a lower one.

This isn’t true, unless an expansion comes out in quarter 4. I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to suggest that most people who wanted the game had already bought it and the core game is free. Not really much of a Christmas gift this year.

So why would the 4th Quarter be higher? That’s probably true for newer games and I’m not so sure it’s true for games that depend on a cash shop.

Most people probably buy their own gems. If you’re spending money on gifts for people (holidays can be costly) then you’re probably spending less money on yourself and gems. I spend less on gems during the holiday season because I have other uses for my cash.

After the holiday season is over I recover for a bit and then start buying gems again.

Stating quarter 4 is usually bigger is a very tricky thing. Even in the store I used to manage, I did better in January than December most years.

Anyone want’s to buy the next half-xpac for 50$? It comes with the core game and the other half-expansion you already paid for. Also what’s announced may not make it in the game, even a year after you paid for it. Wanna try this new Elementalist elite skill that does absolutely nothing? Oh and also the “huge WvW Overhaul” we announced to convince you, that was worked on for over a year, well… it never existed.

Moral of the story: Don’t take your customers for granted. There is only one reason GW2 is losing players: it’s going in the wrong direction.

maddoctor.2738:

Mikali.9651:

I’ve finished it in 2 days playing ranked PvP with less then 50% win ratio.

The reward system of PVP Season 5 was terrible and I really hope it will change in Season 6. Allowing everyone to get full Ascended in a couple of days, without actually playing the game, and without giving any resources (like gold/materials) wasn’t a very good decision.

And btw each HoT zone has unique skin rewards, weapons and/or armor, each zone has unique meta events and a different story. There are lots of collection achievements that include many unique skins. Sure you finished the story and got max gear in a couple of days, that’s how the game is designed.

You finish the story quickly, you get to max level quickly, you get near-max gear (exotic) quickly (see above about the ascended armor from PVP) or at a rather slow pace (if you exclude PVP) then you play the game for the unique skins offered by the various activities it offers. That’s Guild Wars 2 and that’s how the players who play the game like it. If you want a game with constant gear progression there are many out there.

no no no no, you didn’t understand me well. I don’t like gear progression, I came from GW1 and I will love that game forever!
The problem about all those unique rewards is…I don’t need them! I already have gear look I want and I have hard time finding any other gear piece which would make it better. Weapon skins also, only Bolt is needed there to finish the look I want for my character.
It could very well be the reason I am picky and I don’t find most of the armors good looking, or it’s maybe really a truth also.

What I find content is, is more real story, I’ve expected the expansion to have weeks of content like the core had for me! I LOVE LORE
I mean, there I’ve did every heart, vista, story, dungeon stories, all dungeon paths, 100% map completion, all the armors, skills, weapons, sigils and runes. Dude, I needed 2 months of tryharding to “finish it all” and move on to other things like pvp and my dear wvw!
That is a big difference!

I do not collect every skin in the game, never did in any game, I don’t enjoy it and that’s not a content for me. But I do like awesome looking armor sets, which are all different from each others, which look good and which I would like to wear for some rpg play.
But I don’t find them in HoT, I am sorry

Xillllix.3485:

Anyone want’s to buy the next half-xpac for 50$? It comes with the core game and the other half-expansion you already paid for. Also what’s announced may not make it in the game, even a year after you paid for it. Wanna try this new Elementalist elite skill that does absolutely nothing? Oh and also the “huge WvW Overhaul” we announced to convince you, that was worked on for over a year, well… it never existed.

Moral of the story: Don’t take your customers for granted. There is only one reason GW2 is losing players: it’s going in the wrong direction.

Actually, i will buy the next expansion.
I’ll probably even pre-order it because i still like the game and HoT, aside the balance issues it brought to PvP, still delivered for me.

Mikali.9651:

It could very well be the reason I am picky and I don’t find most of the armors good looking, or it’s maybe really a truth also.

Different people like different looks. Some of my characters are “complete” and they don’t use any HoT skins at all, others are a work in progress. That’s normal for skin collection and no different than how GW1 worked like.

That is a big difference!

If you really like exploring and lore I think you are being really unfair with the expansion zones. There are so many little things to find there, things to collect, and loads of events, more than any core zone. For example in VB you have to play the meta enough times to experience each camp’s story. The other zones similarly have a much higher replay value than any of the core zones.

Plus we already got 3 new maps (4th on the way) from LS3

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I could be wrong but… Are not these numbers all regions combined? Korea has the most and to my understanding GW2 is not as popular over there for reasons I do not know.

I just figure that the other games put more energy in the Korean market than what GW2 does. But sure, everyone does not think like me.

Many other more non-korean MMO-games does not give half as much content for free as what Anet gives GW2. Sure maby their expansions are bigger and cheaper but you will have to wait one or two years before you can play the next story. Between that they may put in one or two dungeons with a few features and bug-fixes. But it is not better than the ammount of GW2 updates.

( I may be biased as I havent had the time to play other MMO’s for over a year, so it may have changed since )

Guild Wars 2 isn’t marketed in Asia other than the third party running the game in China. And yes those numbers are all regions EXCEPT regions where a game is run by a 3rd party where the income shows up in royalties which isn’t broken out by game.

Same old Halloween, and same old Wintersday, there was no new content for either, so how can you claim that the argument for lack of content can be shredded?! Just look at that pdf, Lineage outsold GW2 by a factor of 5, and Lineage is a game from 1998, and Korea and south east asia mostly! Still surprising is that ncsoft get most of their money from Korea, even the US and EU combined gets nowhere near them!

Xillllix.3485:

Anyone want’s to buy the next half-xpac for 50$? It comes with the core game and the other half-expansion you already paid for. Also what’s announced may not make it in the game, even a year after you paid for it. Wanna try this new Elementalist elite skill that does absolutely nothing? Oh and also the “huge WvW Overhaul” we announced to convince you, that was worked on for over a year, well… it never existed.

Moral of the story: Don’t take your customers for granted. There is only one reason GW2 is losing players: it’s going in the wrong direction.

I will pre-order it as I found HoT to have been a great value. Getting the core game and previous expansions as part of the newest expansion is a promotional bonus for those that are new or have F2P accounts. If you want the same benefits as them then by all means apply the expansion key to a new or F2P account.

Vayne.8563:

Nope lack of content arguments can’t be shredded. People stopped playing because of lack of content and not all of them came back. So unless you have some proof that everyone comes back, I’m not sure what to tell you.

Other issues are even more loudly complained about including the game becoming more “hard core” and less “casual”.

All this proves is that Anet had a really good run and now they’re falling into the pattern most MMOs fall into.

Nothing else can be gleaned from this. Not one thing.

Well it’s good to see that you have come my way a little. Remember, I said it might be too late, people did leave and are now not coming back. However, it was you who suggested back when we had the results of Q2 that we should look at the results of Q3.
(For if you don’t remember, here is a link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/GW2-Sales-2Q16-a-new-All-Time-Low/first#post6283781 )

And you would be right when only looking to the current quarter, it might simply not help because people did not come back (then again, aren’t these LS-patches also supposed to get people back, and failing in that?). But when we look further back we see the correlation between these patches and better results does not seem to exist. Finally in addition to this the results did go down, so if the LS-patches would help why are the results still going down. Sure, they did only go down a little but this is Q4.

More hard core is something you do hear a lot lately indeed, then again those that have left are not here to complain about their reasons for leaving. You know I still blame the grind (and some mistakes like no seamless zones and no traditional quests). But whatever it is, it needs to get fixed and then they need to find a way to get players back.

“Nothing else can be gleaned from this. Not one thing.” You always say that, and make many claims of based on nothing other than your ideas. That is fine, but many people and companies make (financial) decisions based on numbers like this.

Kartel.2561:

Scripted dungeons / raids? Learn the meta and it becomes routine.

Dynamic Events / World Bosses? Learn the meta and it becomes routine.

Exploring / World Completion? More fun here than most games, but ..been there, done that.

Guild Missions? Nice team-coordinated activities, but still just more scripted content that’s always the same.

Interesting you say this, because it seems to be a design decision they made on purpose.
See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/first#post4522544

I can’t find my comment on that one, but I remember making a comment that I had to disagree with that idea.

What you are ‘complaining’ about is basically this “Knowledge>Skill>Numbers”. When you place knowledge before skill, it means scripted dungeon / content that you can ‘learn’. Once learned it becomes fairly easy and so might get boring.

My idea about that is Skill > Team composition > knowledge.

You can keep increasing skill, team composition means you can make a difference and then there is knowledge.

Why can many PvP maps in games go without any updates and do they stay interesting? Because the enemy is not scripted so there is no ‘learning how to defeat the mechanic’.

Devata.6589:

Kartel.2561:

Scripted dungeons / raids? Learn the meta and it becomes routine.

Dynamic Events / World Bosses? Learn the meta and it becomes routine.

Exploring / World Completion? More fun here than most games, but ..been there, done that.

Guild Missions? Nice team-coordinated activities, but still just more scripted content that’s always the same.

Interesting you say this, because it seems to be a design decision they made on purpose.
See: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Guilds-Raiding/first#post4522544

I can’t find my comment on that one, but I remember making a comment that I had to disagree with that idea.

What you are ‘complaining’ about is basically this “Knowledge>Skill>Numbers”. When you place knowledge before skill, it means scripted dungeon / content that you can ‘learn’. Once learned it becomes fairly easy and so might get boring.

My idea about that is Skill > Team composition > knowledge.

You can keep increasing skill, team composition means you can make a difference and then there is knowledge.

Why can many PvP maps in games go without any updates and do they stay interesting? Because the enemy is not scripted so there is no ‘learning how to defeat the mechanic’.

Enemy may not be scripted in PvP in the sense of game AI enemies but many do come very close. How many people use the meta builds posted online? Of those, how many use the same rotations and become predictable.

This is getting a bit off topic though.

You investment bankers or whatever wall street types sure do have a lot time to break away to assist here – I’m sure it’s really appreciated.

Do any of you have any websites to your current earnings for this quarter? I’ve love to follow your personal success strategies!

Or is your preferred legendary not released yet?

Q4 is usually their biggest quarter for sales for the year for them regardless of an expansion, so when the numbers look the same from the previous Q3… that should signal some alarms that something is wrong. Then again most of the other ncsoft games did the same, except for lineage.

Lack of content is probably the biggest reason for players leaving and not spending as much on the game, if they’re not playing they’re not buying. Releasing content you can finish in a couple hours, and then spend the next two months mindlessly grinding the optional rewards isn’t going to keep everyone around. If you don’t put new worthwhile stuff to buy in the cash shop and just rehash sales of old stuff, then people won’t buy much either.

But hey hope they made good progress on the next expansion (nevermind not even finishing the current one yet).

Its hard to justify buying gems when there is little or nothing of interest (to me) in the gem store.

I think that revisiting the content and additions to the store is in order. Eventually players will have bought all of the items with limited repurchase value that they need. Ive had my bank slots maxed out for years for example.

Devata.6589:

More hard core is something you do hear a lot lately indeed, then again those that have left are not here to complain about their reasons for leaving. You know I still blame the grind (and some mistakes like no seamless zones and no traditional quests). But whatever it is, it needs to get fixed and then they need to find a way to get players back.

Strange that you name things that were never a draw of this game as something that would make players come back. That seems more something that would simply draw other new players.

No new content is never an argument that can be shredded though. Nor any vaguely viable argument. It is all a factor in the whole thing.

I think for me Kartels reason for playing less rings the most true and also brings to light something that is hard to fix. Familiarity and the rate at which something becomes routine is much faster. So a new map is played through in a few days. And the content light but tech heavy expansion HoT is attributing to that.

The focus of ArenaNet should be playing on their strong points in content and less on upgrading old content. And hopefully they will bring lots of things to do in the next expansion and find a routine of bringing lots of content to us so that there is things to play.

I must say that I have a fairly hard time determining what GW2s strong point is though. And I think even ArenaNet has a hard time deciding what that is considering they keep coming with new ideas and new systems every so often. (Unless that is their strong point that keeps players interested.)

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

darkace.8925:

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

Raids was just a very small part of the expansion compared to the other 99% that isn’t all that challenging.

Ayrilana.1396:

darkace.8925:

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

Raids was just a very small part of the expansion compared to the other 99% that isn’t all that challenging.

Personally I thought he was referring to the harder hitting and more tightly packed trash mobs that made moving through the maps harder. Lots of complaints were about that.

Bruno.3812:

Ayrilana.1396:

darkace.8925:

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

Raids was just a very small part of the expansion compared to the other 99% that isn’t all that challenging.

Personally I thought he was referring to the harder hitting and more tightly packed trash mobs that made moving through the maps harder. Lots of complaints were about that.

Oh. Once you learn the mechanics, pretty much none of the new enemy types are really all that bad. It only seems like it’s very difficult but only because people are coming from core Tyria where the enemies were almost no threat.

Ayrilana.1396:

Bruno.3812:

Ayrilana.1396:

darkace.8925:

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

Raids was just a very small part of the expansion compared to the other 99% that isn’t all that challenging.

Personally I thought he was referring to the harder hitting and more tightly packed trash mobs that made moving through the maps harder. Lots of complaints were about that.

Oh. Once you learn the mechanics, pretty much none of the new enemy types are really all that bad.

Yet there were still lots of complaints about it and people who hate those maps and refuse to go there, even now. So maybe it did hurt the game even if they’re not so bad once you learn the mechanics.

The problem as I see it was how there wasn’t a true learning curve in vanilla Tyria. It went from “auto attack playing” in core maps to “need to learn the mechanics” without warning. In other words it was a change in the games playing philosophy from core maps to HoT maps that the casual players neither expected nor had been taught to play.

Bruno.3812:

Ayrilana.1396:

Bruno.3812:

Ayrilana.1396:

darkace.8925:

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

Raids was just a very small part of the expansion compared to the other 99% that isn’t all that challenging.

Personally I thought he was referring to the harder hitting and more tightly packed trash mobs that made moving through the maps harder. Lots of complaints were about that.

Oh. Once you learn the mechanics, pretty much none of the new enemy types are really all that bad.

Yet there were still lots of complaints about it and people who hate those maps and refuse to go there, even now. So maybe it did hurt the game even if they’re not so bad once you learn the mechanics.

The problem as I see it was how there wasn’t a true learning curve in vanilla Tyria. It went from “auto attack playing” in core maps to “need to learn the mechanics” without warning. In other words it was a change in the games playing philosophy from core maps to HoT maps that the casual players neither expected nor had been taught to play.

The learning curve started with LS2 (DT & SW). But I can see how those that skip that could suddenly get surprised and get frustrated as a result.

Ayrilana.1396:

Bruno.3812:

Ayrilana.1396:

Bruno.3812:

Ayrilana.1396:

darkace.8925:

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

Raids was just a very small part of the expansion compared to the other 99% that isn’t all that challenging.

Personally I thought he was referring to the harder hitting and more tightly packed trash mobs that made moving through the maps harder. Lots of complaints were about that.

Oh. Once you learn the mechanics, pretty much none of the new enemy types are really all that bad.

Yet there were still lots of complaints about it and people who hate those maps and refuse to go there, even now. So maybe it did hurt the game even if they’re not so bad once you learn the mechanics.

The problem as I see it was how there wasn’t a true learning curve in vanilla Tyria. It went from “auto attack playing” in core maps to “need to learn the mechanics” without warning. In other words it was a change in the games playing philosophy from core maps to HoT maps that the casual players neither expected nor had been taught to play.

The learning curve started with LS2 (DT & SW).

And if you look at all the complaints, it was too late and too little a learning curve. All of core maps and all of getting to 80 is auto attack playing, and then suddenly it’s not. The learning curve on those two maps is ok but the maps are easily ignored by casuals unless they want to do those specific meta events. Which leads to casuals hitting an expansion full of harder maps they weren’t prepared to tackle and then the inevitable complaints and the later inevitable nerf.

Or are you trying to argue that there wasn’t a drop off of players due to HoT or that anet didn’t have to nerf the maps due to complaints and people not playing on their new maps?

Behellagh.1468:

Well this is a little early.

Doesn’t surprise me. I imagine account key sales aren’t significant at all at the moment even with a 1/2 price sale before episode 3 launched, which was mid quarter. Down only 3% from the previous quarter isn’t all that bad. Of course comparing it YoY with the quarter that HoT launched makes it look a lot worse.

Of course the real loser is WildStar as it doesn’t even get called out anymore and gets lumped into “other”.

One way to spin it, ANet significantly slowed the hemorrhaging with three relatively flat quarters.

As for their sPvP e-Sports plus P4F strategy, believe it or not it’s “cheap” advertising. I don’t have a problem with it.

While I would love to give it a positive swing, the ‘only 3% drop’ does not make it stable yet, especially when you consider that this was Q4 what is usually an above average quarter for the many reasons I also mentioned in other posts.

The real drop was between Q1 and Q2 and that is imho because it’s where the first half years after HoT ended. Somehow the first half year after a release or an expansion is always a good indication. That is also why I was talking about ‘anet has to fix the issues in the first half year of HoT’ even before it released. At this moment there is no real ‘hemorrhaging’ anymore. And it will for sure stabilize at some point, but I don’t think the ’only 3% drop’ is something to base your hoped on too much.

I did not have a very optimist idea about the future results but even I expected Q4 to do better as Q3 (and then again a drop in Q1 if the announcement of the next expansion is in Q2 as I expect (April)).

But to end on a positive note, this last patch is really good. A more normal map (more traditional for GW2) in an area that many people have likely been wondering about in the past (who never wondered what was at the other sides of DR?).
If the expansion had more of these type of maps, and solved the problems the game has (that is still is a requirement) I think that would have been much better, but at least the game is now heading in that direction.
And I also noticed more people online yesterday. That is not enough to turn the tights but at least they might be going in the right direction again.
Now just find a way to get people back.

darkace.8925:

You can blame a lack of content if you want, but I believe Heart of Thorns gave this game a mortal wound from which it won’t recover. Asking an industry-high $50 for an expansion that delivered an egregiously low amount of content, not fully delivering on advertised content, and the stark shift in design philosophy to appeal to a more hardcore but less numerous group of players really hurt this game in a time when Guild Wars 2 needed all the good will and good publicity it could get.

Perfect and concise description of the situation.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I could be wrong but… Are not these numbers all regions combined? Korea has the most and to my understanding GW2 is not as popular over there for reasons I do not know.

I just figure that the other games put more energy in the Korean market than what GW2 does. But sure, everyone does not think like me.

Many other more non-korean MMO-games does not give half as much content for free as what Anet gives GW2. Sure maby their expansions are bigger and cheaper but you will have to wait one or two years before you can play the next story. Between that they may put in one or two dungeons with a few features and bug-fixes. But it is not better than the ammount of GW2 updates.

( I may be biased as I havent had the time to play other MMO’s for over a year, so it may have changed since )

It’s not about a comparison with other games but more about how GW2 is doing over time. And even if we take other games into the equation.. Well if other games are have less ‘free’ content and if they are better at retaining people (what might or might not be true depending on the game) with expansions then that might be what works better for many people. I personally are in favor of (nore regular) expansion and just some smaller patches (maybe one big content-patch) in-between.

Devata.6589:

Well if other games are have less ‘free’ content and if they are better at retaining people (what might or might not be true depending on the game) with expansions then that might be what works better for many people.

Let’s take a look at those other games then.

The first one in numbers of revenue is Lineage. To my knowledge the game is still subscription based and is only active in Korea. I have no idea how expansions work with this one.

The second is Blade & Soul. B&S is free to play with an optional premium membership. “Expansions” have no cost.

Third one is Lineage II. Lineage II is also free to play, no cost for expansions, with an online marketplace.

Next up is Aion. Aion, just like the others, is free to play with free expansions and a cash shop again.

So all the games that surpass Guild Wars 2 in revenue have no paid expansions and the only NCSoft game on that list with paid expansions is Guild Wars 2…

fixing forum bugs